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Photo credit: Philadelphia History Museum at the Atwater Kent (top); Doug Heller - ushistory.org (bottom) |
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Preserving the Lazaretto's place in history
Did You Know... that David Barnes, associate professor of Department of History and Sociology of Science in the School of Arts and Sciences, is working to preserve one of the oldest quarantine facilities in the world?
Predating Ellis Island by nearly one century, the Lazaretto—named after the patron saint of lepers, Saint Lazarus—is that the oldest surviving facility in the Western Hemisphere once used to quarantine those entering the U.S. with infectious diseases. Located on the Delaware River near the Philadelphia International Airport, the Lazaretto served as the quarantine station and hospital for the Port of Philadelphia in the 19th century.
In June, Barnes helped stage a public reenactment of the quarantine flag-raising ceremony at the Lazaretto site in Tinicum Township. The centuries-old tradition occurred each year on the first day of quarantine season when the Philadelphia Board of Health would raise a distinctive yellow flag bearing a black Q to signal ships to stop and await inspection.
For more information about the Lazaretto, visit:
http://www.upenn.edu/pennnews/current/latestnews/062910.html
For Barnes's historic photos and documents about the Lazaretto, visit:
www.sas.upenn.edu/~dbarnes/Site/Lazaretto.html.
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